


Hark Back In Thought

by lindsey_grissom



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-03-06
Updated: 2009-03-06
Packaged: 2017-10-10 13:49:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/100468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lindsey_grissom/pseuds/lindsey_grissom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>He asked her to join him in his search for a book, perhaps a coffee after and she grinned up at him, saluted and answered sir, yes sir, she would...</i>  What if Laura and Bill had met before the Cylons attacked.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Laura

He walks beside her, hair trim and eyes flashing. The medals on his sash glint in the artificial light and she counts them all. Doubles them because she remembers this man, and these are only the ones he couldn't refuse. The blue uniform looks good on him, and she said it would and he very nearly hides how uncomfortable it makes him feel. She smiles feeling perhaps a little artificial herself and wonders how it came to this.

He a Commander, she a teacher playing at President.

Her eyes watch as he points to the fine details on the board above them, her mind lost in the memory of another time. Oh so long ago.

Summer days lazily becoming Autumn and a lost Pilot refusing to ask his way. She had found him, of course, between classes and feeling the high of academic achievement. The frown settling deep between his eyebrows as he glanced around himself. She still thinks he had expected an arrow to suddenly appear before him, pointing his way. It hadn't, but she had and in the end it was all the same. She had taken such delight in pulling the map from his pocket, eyes sparkling as a light blush crept across his cheeks. Pointing the way out of the grounds and back almost three streets to the library buildings he had really wanted. Watching him leave, map once more concealed and his memory guiding the way.

She looks at him now and wonders if she wore the same smug smile he does. If she were as blatant in her enjoyment of his ignorance. She knows herself well enough now to suppose that she probably had been. For not the first time she considers if he remembers, if this is all his way of turning the tables that already lie side-ways. But, again, she knows herself and her faults and knows she is far more forgettable than he.

She watches as he moves towards the Colonel and hides a true smile behind her hand at his expression. His son walks up to her and she looks again at the young man who so reminds her of another.

If she ever has doubts. Questions the memories and the man standing above her, she need only look at his son to know the truth of their fate. She won't say they look the same, they don't, although in that her memories may betray her. She knows well that were he to once again be - was it twenty four or twenty five - he would not resemble so closely the image in her past. But the way they hold themselves, the quiet intensity in which they stand powerful and in control. That is something inherited or learnt but uniquely theirs.

She leans across to Lee, questions his father's opinion of her and finds herself surprised by the reply she gleans. Oh, she suspected from early on that he detested the formality of her position and his, but she had thought this changed by the military in a way she never could have achieved. Would never have wanted to.

She looks at him and the glance that crosses his eyes as he talks takes her back to that summer day and the run across the gardens, defying the potted signs and raised voices. Ignoring the sting of her lungs and calves, the press of her books against her chest. Knowing she had to get there, that she could breathe after, she just had to get there before him. The delight, breath caught and limbs strengthening, as he saw her, ahead of him. The giggle she had no hope of trapping as he turned to look behind him then back, as though expecting her to still be where he left her. No need to question her identity when the laugh told him he had been played, and for a moment as he stood still and distant, she had wondered if she had misjudged her first impression. He moved, one small step at a time, smile appearing and growing until he reached her and it lit up his eyes. He asked her to join him in his search for a book, perhaps a coffee after and she grinned up at him, saluted and answered sir, yes sir, she would.

Memory fades as the ship explodes around her and she clings on to his assuredness to get them through this.

***

She waits, panic over, in his quarters. His home. If the memories didn't tell her that, then the pictures would. The rugs and cushions. The books. She takes them all in greedily, hungry for these objects now missing from her life. She mourns the loss of their teachings when she can't bring herself to mourn everything else. She never doubted that he would have many on his ship, but that he would have them _all_ here. That she would remember how to know.

Her fingers glide lightly over each cover, bindings imprinting their titles on her fingertips, cataloging themselves against her skin. She reaches the last pile, stacked haphazard atop his desk. This is how she knows.

The red cover pulls on her memory once more and she knows she cannot be singular in the fleet to keep losing herself to the past.

She looks at the creased cover and thinks of a rectangle of red against cream sheets, spine cracked and pages slightly ruffled. His hand beneath; caught where it fell. His head to the side, eyes closed to sleep as his breathing turned deeper, almost snores she's sure he still denies. She had found him like that, returning from class. She'd wondered only a moment how he had gotten in, before deciding it didn't matter so much after all. She had known him only days and already she could feel so comfortable in his company. The book pulled at her, the less of two evils and she chose to focus on its words, to keep her hands within its pages and not the strands of his hair. Not long and he had woken, the soft blush of sleep across his features as she made coffee and tried to pretend she cared about his poor manners. She learnt that her roommate could be bribed and that he liked his coffee extra hot. She's forgotten her roommate's price but she remembers how long it takes him to finish a cup.

He returns and she should feel uncomfortable invading his space so thoroughly. She doesn't. Payback's fair game whether he knows it or not.

Her eyes on the books his voice reminds her of simpler times, so many years earlier and two coffees later, her head on his shoulder as he reads from the red book. His voice only as smooth as velvet on glass, eyes falling shut with the vibrations through her head that wound a world within her mind. Drifting to sleep, his hand on her hip, his voice dictating her dreams for weeks. Promising to read _Dark Day_ when she confesses come morning. She has a weakness for mysteries.

Past becomes present and he holds out the book, the one she's never read because it would never live up to the expectation of his voice in her ear. She looks into his blue eyes as she thanks him and gets caught all over again by the sparkle that hasn't faded in all these years.

Blue never has been the same since their one goodbye. Since she stared into his eyes hoping to drown and wondered how it got to this. Only a single week and she almost couldn't bear for him to part. She knew no more than his name and his rank, yet she knew so much. The way his cheeks creased unevenly on a laugh, the drift of a hand between his eyes when frustration overcomes him. The smell of fresh coffee, shaving cream and _him_ that surrounded his body like a light cloud, transposed now with less coffee and more him. She refuses to allow herself a preference.

She takes his gift, not a lend, and thinks about what could have been and the numbers that tell her they shouldn't even be here, neither one, and never together. She thinks about telling him he's aged better than he knows, asking if he still sleeps on college girls' beds while they study or if that was just for her. She thinks about how much she has changed and still has to, from that girl who watched hidden from his view as his shuttle flew out of sight and tried not to cry too much because she had a presentation in a few hours. She thinks she should be sad that he doesn't remember her, but she isn't. She isn't sad or disappointed, it would make everything more complicated than it is. She isn't surprised either, she was young and so alive. She was blonde; just a phase gotten over faster than him. She doesn't expect him to recognize her, she barely recognizes herself anymore. She doesn't mind. She'll simply have to learn him all over again, for as long as she's got.


	2. Bill

He listens to her assurances, the comm line crackling with them. The confidence in her voice as she tells him to let her do her job. To make sure he remembers the boundaries of his. He can hear the lesson behind her words and it suits her. The power not the total of all she is, all she has become.

He likes more than he should that it hasn't changed her.

Not in the ways that matter, the ways he feared it would all those years ago. Those many years ago when she was just a smile to a face to a name heard murmured in corridors. He lets his mind drift as she hangs up, to cold winter days and the short shore time he rarely took.

He remembers the sight of a curvy red-head at the school gates, learning everyone's name as they entered. A pat for the children, a smile for the parents. Lee's eyes lit up with the attention, Zak cowering behind his legs. He took notice of the grace with which she moved, dropping to Zak's level, eyes amusingly apologetic as her small hands pressed against his knees to keep her balance, leaning sideways to keep his youngest son in her sights. Her words spoken so softly he couldn't have heard them if he tried. He hadn't, distracted by the image she presented, the way no one seemed to notice her until she desired it. He thinks he should have seen it then; the power hiding just beneath the surface. He thinks perhaps his sons did.

Jolted back by the comm buzzing against his ear he considers whether she remembers that time. He likes to think himself unforgettable, his sons memorable, but she was only one woman and there had been hundreds in that school. She had only been there a day, he knows, he had never seen her that close again, felt her hands on his thigh. Smelt the flowers in her hair.

Dee tells him that the day has started, that threats have been made and Lee is waiting again for a brief on his mission. He tries to remain where he is, tries to concentrate and be the Commander he'll be all day, but his mind has other plans. For more than a moment he wishes he could be there when the Quorum meets. To stand behind her, guarding her, watching her as she commands them all.

Memory wins over reality and he sees a green suit and white shirt and heels she should have stumbled in. She hadn't. Standing proud atop the school steps, arms out-held to hush the noise. She had shown herself to be above everyone and yet so much a part of them all. Mutters beside his ear as the other fathers tried not to stare too long, as the mothers wondered how long she would stay, how much the school would benefit. Learning suddenly that she wasn't just a teacher, wasn't just a supply for cover. Part of the Mayor's cabinet, this wasn't for money. He watched as she manipulated the crowd. No, not manipulate, simply tamper with their thoughts. They would never consider her help a political gamble, would never think her anything but true. He didn't, staring up at her and wondering how often she wished she could do more than her post allowed. Seeing the wistfulness of her gaze as it rested on the children and wanting desperately to help himself.

He knows she barely saw him that day, her attention so focused on the children. As it should have been, would always have been, he knows, if she hadn't left it all behind for the former President. But he remembers the disappointment of not being center of her attention, and now he knows just what he was missing. He no longer questions why Zak left him that morning so happy, why Lee asked for weeks if his teacher would be sick again soon, and could he please, please move to Ms Roslin's school.

He hears the wireless again, those idiots who call themselves the press. No matter his own beliefs, how they may have changed since her first steps upon his ship, he can't imagine hating the media more. She deserves respect. Her position calls for it, her personality, her intelligence begs for it. Hearing his own thoughts reflected back by one of the reporters he wonders if perhaps she really does have this affect on everyone who sees her just a little.

 

***

The music stops the moment she climbs the steps, silence falling before she even lifts a single arm. He won't say he agrees with her choice of successor because he doesn't. But he has time to learn her reasons, and with the elections, he doubts the doctor will ever see the seat of power. Never sit in it. He thinks she will be leading this fleet of hers for a long while, and he's changed enough in the short time to know that he likes it that way. No matter how much he complains about her to his XO. No matter how much he worries that she is becoming closer to Lee than he ever has been.

He gazes up at her and looks straight into those deep eyes. Green with just a fleck of grey and he thinks he can almost read her mood from the colour alone.

It could be the lights, could be the ambrosia that's been flowing fast in just the last twenty-minutes, but she changes before him, becoming the woman he watched stand just as she does now, in front of a larger audience. Younger and more serious as she told the worlds that the children were suffering and yes the war was still a painful memory but technology needed to return to the classroom if they were ever to move forward as a species. He watched as the green eyes went so very dark, as though remembering something painful, not lightening as she spoke to the crowds again, her tone never beseeching, but compelling just the same. Learning that she hadn't just been teaching at his children's school, but others across the city, seeing the sparkle re-enter her eyes as she told them that money doesn't matter, so long as the children are happy and want to learn.

There have been times since that he's seen the leaves change and thought of her, the mix of red and green and green and red and known that _this_ would reflect her anger, and _this_ her absolute joy. Knowing without ever having seen either, and never questioning that knowledge, just pushing it away and concentrating on the life he has and the people in it. But now she is part of that, and it can't be pushed away quite so easily anymore. Her eyes tell him that she worries for her choice as much as he. But he trusts her, perhaps more than he should and bashful smiles when a city applauded her reminds him that she has come a long way. The crowd moves in applause and he turns away at the Vice-President's arrival, the party picking up swiftly where it unresistantly left off.

He loses sight of her for a while, his men and women swelling around him, between them and keeping her presence to just the edge of his notice. He sees her, sitting so isolated at an empty table and takes the time to look at her. Follows the line of her profile from the toe of her heels to the few strands of hair she can't control. Pauses a little too long on the length of her legs, thanking someone that this suit had survived the attacks. It seems unlikely, but it reminds him of the one she wore when she almost changed his mind about computers in schools. A little higher and he tries not to pause there as well, in case she looks up, in case she notices. In case he can't stop.

He couldn't before, when her speech had turned to dancing, and she had slipped away and returned in a gown. She had been so far from a teacher and yet he had still wanted to beg her to teach him some more. To run his hands through her curls as she told him about the Colonies of old, and if her life was as she wanted it. He had watched her twirl across the dance floor, a new man on her arm each song. And they were on her arm, each one, never she on theirs and not once could he see her as in their embrace. She kept herself apart form them all. Even him, when she took his offer with a smile and let him lead her a little to the side of the center. He watched her as she watched everyone else, smiling at their happiness, missing her own. He hadn't. Goodbye had been a squeeze of her hand on his arm, gratitude tossed on the turn of her heel as she was taken by another.

He looks at her now, at the look of pride on her face as she watches others have their fun without her, and he knows she doesn't remember him; just another that she could make happy that night. She never fought with herself to remember she was married. _Happily_ married. That she had two little boys she loved, and a wife that she had made vows to.

Taking the steps to bring himself up close to her, he thinks about what he's going to do, what he's going to ask. He thinks about how wrong it can all go, how improbable that they would be here again, both of them, free from his marriage and her constant male attention. Constrained anew by their positions and something he can't read yet, that hides in those grey specs that keep increasing. He thinks about how this could really be a mistake and remembers how hard it was to let her slip out of his arms before, but habits die hard and he has never been much for change especially in himself. She smiles when she sees him and he knows he's going to struggle to let her go, but he has years to make her notice him, make her remember him as much as he does her. He'll hold her close and let her go, again, and spend their years making her want to come back.

 

**End.**


End file.
